


Freckles

by GranolaPerks



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, don't worry it doesn't end sad, sorta a drabble thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:39:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8460424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GranolaPerks/pseuds/GranolaPerks
Summary: Kent has freckles. He has them and he hates them.





	

Kent has freckles. He has since he was a child. He spent so much time in the sun that they tended to last well into the winter, dark dots lining his cheekbones, making his eyes seem brighter by comparison, and made his devilish smile look just innocent enough that he could get away with almost anything by just looking at his parents or other adults in the right way. 

But they never went away. He got older, he matured, but they stayed. They still dot and litter his cheeks and nose, and pepper parts of his shoulders and arms. 

Kent has freckles. He has them and he hates them.

In reality, he’s embarrassed by them. He doesn’t look as old as he is already, and it’s made so much worse by the little brown spots all over his cheeks. He’s a grown ass man, he thinks, and grown ass men don’t have  _freckles_. He looks like he’s still in high school still 18 and innocent, unaware of what was going to come. He lost his innocence, he thinks, not when he had his first kiss, nor when he first had sex, but when the boy he gave those firsts to overdosed and pushed him away. That boy loved his freckles, but apparently he stopped when he grew too old, too mature for them, outgrew them. Outgrew Kent.

Yet these freckles stay, giving the illusion of innocence. Kent wants them gone. He’s a  _fucking adult_. What adult has freckles? What menacing, aggressive, hockey-playing adult has  _freckles_?

He tries to cover them, but he plays a very masculine sport. It’s hard enough to go buy makeup, let alone wear it around any of his teammates. It melts off, too, when he’s out running or skating sprints, leaving streaks down his cheeks and letting the hideous little dots show through.

He hates them, tries to scrub them away in the mirror when he’s drunk, even though he knows full well it won’t work.

Kent spends years hating his face, hating the little marks that cover it so starkly. But he meets someone when he’s 24. He’s playing against the boy that broke his heart, and he hopes, hopes stupidly, that they’ll be able to rectify things. When he’s pushed away again he breaks,  _just like a little boy_  he thinks, and finds himself hiding down a hallway in an unfamiliar arena, just letting himself fall apart.

And then  _he_  comes. Not the boy he used to want, but a man. He’s bigger than Kent, by quite a bit, but he crouches down in front of his crumpled-against-the-wall body and reaches out with a hand, placing in on Kent’s knee. “Why so sad?” He has an accent and Kent can’t help but look up.

He shakes his head. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

The man nods and Kent drops his head. “It okay, we all idiots sometimes, yes?”

Kent looks up and the man smiles. It takes him a moment, but he finally recognizes who it is. “Why are you talking to me, Mashkov?”

“I don’t like when pretty boys cry.”

And Kent cringes at the words. Boy. Cry. He’s fucking weak and he knows it. “Cause that’s all I am, right? A stupid boy?” He pauses when he backtracks over the rest of the sentence. “Wait… I’m pretty?”

Alexei is nice to him. He lets Kent lead the way in their relationship, lets him be the decider, the dominator. He gives Kent all the power in the world he wants, but keeps him in check, pulling him back to Earth when he gets too full of himself. 

And he loves Kent’s freckles. He holds Kent’s face, cupping his cheeks and running his eyes over each and every dot, counting them like he’s trying to count the stars, eyes wild and in awe as he shapes out constellations that Kent has never been able to make out. And he traces them, he traces them so softly and gently that it reminds him of the grass that tickled his sides on the fields he used to lay on when he was younger. And when he kisses them, Kent feels free. Just free. He forgets everything around him, lets his eyes slide shut, and feels Alexei’s lips cover the ugly little spots he’s hated for so long, making them beautiful and new.

It takes years, it seems, but when Kent wakes up one day, and uncurls himself from around Alexei, he pauses in the bathroom mirror. Instead of hideous marks marring his skin he sees marks of adoration, of endearment and stupid pet names. He sees a source of love, instead of a reminder of hate. 

Kent takes a moment to look at himself in the mirror, smiles, and realizes that he doesn’t hate what he sees anymore. 

Kent has freckles. He has them, and finally after all this time, he loves them.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote more patater lol. I'll probably write even more at some point. Check my tumblr, I usually post there first: hockeyrobot


End file.
